Pope Francis breaks with tradition, style and formality

On his first full day as shepherd of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, Pope Francis picked up his luggage at a Vatican hotel, personally thanked each member of the staff and even paid his own bill. Then, at his first Mass, he delivered a short, unscripted homily – in Italian, not the Latin of his predecessor – holding the cardinals who elected him responsible for keeping the church strong.

Pope for barely 12 hours, Francis brushed off years of tradition and formality Thursday with a remarkable break in style that sent a clear message that his papacy is poised to reject many of the trappings enjoyed by now-retired Benedict XVI.

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Pope Francis waves from the steps of the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in Rome Thursday. At left is Cardinal Santos Abril of Spain and, right, Cardinal Agostino Vallini, Vicar General of Rome. Reuters

In this photo provided by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Francis, center, flanked at left by Cardinal Agostino Vallino, and at right by Cardinal Santos Abril y Castello, walks inside St. Mary Major Basilica, in Rome on Thursday. Pope Francis prayed at Rome's main basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary a day after cardinals elected him the 26th pope. The Associated Press

In this photo provided by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Francis puts flowers on the altar inside St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome on Thursday. The Associated Press

Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 Reuters

That was hardly out of character for Francis. For years, as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentine pastor took the bus to work, kissed the feet of AIDS patients and prayed with former prostitutes, eschewing the luxurious residence that would have been his due as archbishop of Buenos Aires.

But now he is pope – the first from the New World and the first Jesuit – and his style both personal and liturgical is in a global spotlight.

On his first full day, he couldn’t have signaled a greater contrast to Benedict, the German academic who was meek and generous in person but formal and traditional in public.

The differences played out Thursday in the Sistine Chapel as the 76-year-old Francis celebrated his first public Mass as pope.

Whereas Benedict read a three-page discourse in Latin, Francis had a far simpler message. Speaking off-the-cuff for 10 minutes in easy Italian, he said all Catholics must “build” the church and “walk” with the faith.

He urged priests to build their churches on solid foundations, warning: “What happens when children build sand castles on the beach? It all comes down.”

“If we don’t proclaim Jesus, we become a pitiful NGO, not the bride of the Lord,” he said.

“When we walk without the cross, and when we preach about Christ without the cross, we are not disciples of the Lord. We are mundane. We are bishops, priests, cardinals, popes, but we are not disciples of the Lord.”

The new style was evident even in Francis’ wardrobe. Rather than wear the new golden pectoral cross he was offered after his election Wednesday, he kept the simple crucifix of his days as bishop. He also turned down the red velvet cape that Benedict wore when he was presented to the world for the first time in 2005, choosing the simple white cassock of the papacy instead.

“It seems to me what is certain is it’s a great change of style, which for us isn’t a small thing,” Sergio Rubin, Francis’ authorized biographer, told The Associated Press.

Rubin said the new pope “believes the church has to go into the streets” and be one with the people it serves and not impose its message on a society that often doesn’t want to hear it.

For this reason, as Cardinal Bergoglio, “he built altars and tents in the squares of Buenos Aires, and held Masses with former prostitutes and homeless people in the street,” Rubin said. “He did this to express the closeness of the church to those who are suffering.”

Rubin said he expected to see more changes – even substantive ones – once Francis gets his footing.

“I think the categories of progressive and conservative are insufficient,” Rubin said. “Pope Francis is someone with a great mental openness to enter into dialogue. He is very understanding of different situations. He doesn’t like to impose.”

Francis began Thursday with an early morning trip in a simple Vatican car – not the papal sedan – to a Roman basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary, where he prayed before an icon of the Madonna.

Like many Latin American Catholics, Francis has a particular devotion to the Virgin Mary, and his visit to the St. Mary Major basilica was a reflection of that. Laying flowers on the altar, he then prayed before a Byzantine icon of Mary and the infant Jesus.

“He has a great devotion to this icon of Mary, and every time he comes from Argentina he visits this basilica,” said the Rev. Elio Montenero, who was present for the pope’s arrival. “We were surprised today because he did not announce his visit.”

Francis himself had foreshadowed the visit, telling the 100,000 people packed into rain-soaked St. Peter’s Square after his election that he intended to pray to the Madonna “that she may watch over all of Rome.”

The new pope, known for his work with the poor in Buenos Aires’ slums, had charmed the crowd when he emerged on the loggia and greeted them with a simple and familiar: “Brothers and sisters, good evening.”

On Thursday, members of his flock were charmed again when Francis stopped by the Vatican-owned residence where he stayed before the conclave to pick up his luggage. But that wasn’t the only reason he made the detour.

“He wanted to thank the personnel, people who work in this house,” said the Rev. Pawel Rytel-Andrianek, a guest at the residence. “He greeted them one by one, no rush, the whole staff, one by one.”

Francis then paid his bill “to set a good example,” Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said.

“People say that he never in these 20 years asked for a (Vatican) car,” Rytel-Andrianek said. “Even when he went to the conclave with a priest from his diocese, he just walked out to the main road, picked up a taxi and went to the conclave. So very simple for a future pope.”

Francis displayed that same sense of humility immediately after his election, spurning the throne on an elevated platform that was brought out for him to receive the cardinals’ pledges of obedience, said Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York.

“He met with us on our own level,” Dolan said.BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – The man who is now Pope Francis was a young Jesuit leader, not long out of seminary, when Argentina’s military junta unleashed a reign of terror that became known as the “dirty war.” That was more than 30 years ago, but the reaction to the naming of the first Argentine pope shows that the wounds have not yet healed.

Many Argentines were still stunned Thursday that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, had become the first pope from the Americas. But the joy was somewhat tempered by a public debate over Bergoglio’s actions, or inactions, from 1976 to 1983, when 30,000 dissidents were killed or “disappeared,” among them an estimated 150 priests.

At the time, Bergoglio was a Jesuit “provincial,” in charge of the religious men’s order, and then rector at a seminary, leadership positions that would not have given him the political clout later afforded by his post as archbishop. Still, critics in Argentina have started revisiting old allegations, including the claim that Bergoglio did not protect two Jesuit priests, Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics, who were seized and tortured by military authorities in May 1976.

The priests had been doing social work in poor areas of the capital, a suspect activity at the time, and Yorio later accused Bergoglio of in effect cooperating with the authorities by not publicly endorsing their work. However, in a biography by an Argentine journalist, Sergio Rubin, Bergoglio denied the allegation and described how he had worked behind the scenes to save the two men from being killed.

In 2010, Bergoglio testified before a special tribunal investigating the killings and detentions of that era, denying that he had anything to do with the arrest of the two priests. An attorney for the tribunal subsequently described Bergoglio as a “reluctant witness.”

If nothing else, the case of the two priests hints at the general attitude of the Catholic Church in Argentina at the time. Much of the Latin American church was strongly influenced by liberation theology, a Marxist-tinged movement that called for social justice for the poor. Although many young Argentine priests were taken by the movement, it did not make as deep inroads in the country as elsewhere, and Bergoglio is said to have resisted its influence. Nor did the Catholic hierarchy in Argentina publicly resist the junta.

“What I think is clear is that the church never came out and publicly denounced the disappearances and never aligned itself with the progressive forces, as it did in Chile and El Salvador,” said Iain Guest, founder and executive director of the Advocacy Project, a Washington-based nonprofit, and the author of “Behind the Disappearances: Argentina’s Dirty War Against Human Rights and the United Nations.” The church, he said, “was certainly not heroic in Argentina.”

Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo, a group of relatives of the victims that had criticized Bergoglio for his lack of action during the dictatorship, responded enigmatically to the news of his election, issuing a one-word statement, “Amen.”

But supporters of the new pope point to his backing of the canonization of three priests and two seminarians who were killed in July 1976 in the San Patricio Church of Buenos Aires, apparently on orders from the junta, as evidence of support for priestly resistance to the regime.

One of the pope’s most prominent defenders is Adolfo Perez Esquivel, who won the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to expose the crimes of the junta. “Perhaps he didn’t have the courage of other priests, but he never collaborated with the dictatorship,” Perez Esquivel told Radio de la Red in Buenos Aires. “Bergoglio was no accomplice of the dictatorship. He can’t be accused of that.”

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